A third sucker punch when their gazes met.
She didn’t say anything, but Theo thought maybe she had felt it, too. He also thought maybe she was fighting to push it away as hard as he was. Yes, she was a widow, but after everything they’d gone through, she probably didn’t want to have another round with him any more than he did with her.
“It’s not a good idea to be this close to a window,” Theo insisted. And yes, he whispered. “We should at least get down.”
She clamped her teeth over her bottom lip for a couple of seconds. A gesture he’d seen her do so many times. Nerves. But she finally ducked down so that her head wouldn’t be anywhere near the glass. Theo ducked, too, but he stayed high enough so he could continue to glance out and make sure the killer wasn’t sneaking up on them.
The moments crawled by, and with each one of them Theo became well aware of the close contact between them. It was hard to fight the attraction and the old memories when they were this close. And when he caught her scent.
Hell.
For just a split second, the image of her naked body flashed into his head.
Thankfully, the image didn’t stay. It vanished when he heard the voice and the sound of footsteps. It was yet another voice he recognized. Gabriel’s.
Theo braced himself for whatever Gabriel might dole out. He could just order Theo out of there, but Gabriel barely spared him a glance when he stepped into the doorway. That’s because he was on his phone, and he took his sister by the arm and moved her out of the mudroom and into the adjacent kitchen.
Once Gabriel had done that, he finished his call, slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket and finally looked at Theo. This time, it was more than a glance.
“What the hell did you do? Who did you bring with you?” Gabriel demanded. But he didn’t give Theo a chance to answer. “One of the ranch hands just called. He spotted an armed man crawling over the back fence, and the man’s making his way to the house right now.”
Ivy’s heart slammed against her chest. She had already been feeling so many emotions, including dread and fear, but this was a different kind of fear.
There’s a killer coming here to the ranch tonight.
She hadn’t exactly dismissed Theo’s warning, but Ivy had prayed he was wrong. Apparently not, though. Because she doubted an armed intruder had good intentions. And according to Gabriel, he was on his way to the house. Ivy would have bolted toward the front stairs if Gabriel hadn’t taken hold of her arm again.
“I’ve already told the others to lock up and get down,” her brother said. “They’re fine.” He slapped off the kitchen lights and tipped his head to the back door where Theo and she had entered. “Lock that,” he added to Theo. Theo did, and Gabriel used his phone to arm the security system.
“There could be listening devices planted in the house and at your office.” Theo hurried into the kitchen with them. “Who else is here?” Theo asked at the same moment that Gabriel threw out a question of his own.
“What do you have to do with the armed guy?”
Judging from the glare Gabriel aimed at Theo, her brother felt his question had priority over Theo’s. Theo must have felt the same way, because he started talking.
“I don’t know who he is, but I have a recording of a CI who says that a killer is on the way to the ranch. I didn’t call because supposedly this killer had managed to plant bugs in the house and the sheriff’s office, and I didn’t want to tip him off that we were onto him. But obviously we’re past the point of being worried about tipping him off.”
“Yeah.” A muscle flickered in Gabriel’s jaw. “How long had Theo been here before you texted me?” he asked her.
“Just a few seconds.” That was possibly true. Ivy honestly had no idea how long it’d been. Time had sort of frozen when she’d come face-to-face with the man she’d never expected to see again.
Gabriel stared at her as if he might challenge that, but then he growled out, “Follow me.”
Ivy was certain that put some renewed panic in her eyes, certain that her brother saw it as well, but Gabriel kept moving, anyway. “We’ll go into my office.”
Not upstairs. Though that’s where Ivy wanted to go. “Nathan,” she said.
“He’s in the guest room with Jameson and Jodi,” Gabriel quickly answered. “They moved him into the bathroom and will make sure he’s all right.”
That steadied Ivy a little. Jameson was a lawman, and Jodi had been trained as a private security specialist. Still, Ivy didn’t want a gunman anywhere near the house or anyone in her family.
“Nathan?” Theo asked.
“Ivy’s son,” Gabriel said before she could answer. “If this gunman makes it to the house, he’ll be seriously outnumbered. But it might not even come to that, because I have three armed ranch hands headed out to stop him.”
Gabriel must have made those arrangements shortly before he’d come to the mudroom. Good. Ivy wanted every precaution taken. Correction: she needed it, because she had to keep Nathan safe.
“You have a son?” Theo asked, his voice practically a whisper now.
“Yes.” She didn’t give any other details. No time. Because Gabriel spoke again.
“I want to know everything about the recording,” Gabriel insisted, glancing at Theo again. “I want to hear what this CI has to say.”
Theo nodded and followed Gabriel into his office, which was just off the family room on the bottom floor. There were plenty of windows here, but Gabriel had already shut the blinds and drapes. He also didn’t turn on the lights. No doubt because it would alert anyone close enough to the house that there was someone in that particular room.
However, her brother did go to one of the windows that faced the back of the house, and he opened the blinds just enough so he could keep watch. Theo did the same to the window across from Gabriel. That one would give him a view of the side of the house. While the inside of the house was practically dark, there were security lights on the grounds, so maybe they’d be able to see this monster coming.
“Is there an extra gun in here?” Ivy asked.
“Bottom right drawer,” Gabriel quickly provided. It was locked, but he rattled off the combination, and she took out a Glock he had stashed there. She wasn’t an expert marksman, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she would use it to defend her son if necessary.
“The CI is someone who regularly gives me intel,” Theo started. “I’ll write down his name for you later. In case the place really is bugged, I don’t want to compromise his identity. The other person you’ll hear on the recording is a federal agent. He’s the one who sent me this, and the voices have been altered—again so that no one will be compromised.”
While still keeping a grip on his gun, Theo took out his phone and hit the play button. He held it up so that Gabriel would be able to hear it, and it didn’t take long before the man’s voice began to pour through the room.
“I heard some stuff,” the man said. “Stuff about them Becketts. I figured I oughta tell you because that family’s been through enough.”
Yes, they had been. The murder of their parents. Also the near murder of Gabriel’s bride-to-be, Jodi. It had changed their lives forever.
It was still changing them.
“There’s a killer coming after them,” the man went on. “I don’t know the fella’s name, but I heard him talking at the Silver Moon Bar over on St. Mary’s Street. He said he’d